Cake Crumbs
by Number1PixarFan
Summary: Post-finale oneshot. Henry runs into Gretel for the first time after the curse breaks. Henry feels something strange around her, and he's absolutely baffled. Luckily, Red witnesses the whole thing and knows exactly what's going on. Can she help Henry approach his new crush? Warning: PUPPY LOVE! Also, rating is due to one mild offensive term.


**A/N: I don't think anyone else ships this, but really, I can't be the only one who saw the opening scene of True North when Henry and Ava first talk and thought "ZOMG puppy love!" However, I also thought that when Paige said "Hi" to Henry after school, so maybe I'm just forgetting that time when I was ten years old and I would just talk to boys my age and it didn't mean a thing. . .**

**But this idea was too friggin' cute to pass up.**

**I really hope you like this! Please Read and Review!**

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"What'll it be, sweetie? A hot cocoa?" Red pulled her pad and pen out from under her cloak and smiled at Henry.

Henry gladly smiled back. The Evil Queen hardly let him see any of Storybrooke's good people since the curse was broken. Red was such a nice sight to see, and a lot less likely than Regina to try swallowing him up whole. And Henry loved that she wore a red cape over her uniform. "Definitely cocoa," he said.

Red set the pad down on the counter and winked at him. "I started mixing some up as soon as I saw you come in." She started making her way to the coffee maker, where there was already water steaming in a little white mug.

Granny's hot cocoa was Henry's favorite drink in the whole world, or at least Storybrooke, but that wasn't why seeing it prepared was making him fidget with anticipation. He wasn't so much thirsty as he was completely starved of pure sugar. The can of homemade whipped cream in Red's hand was calling for him, and so was the delightful bakery smell that reached out from behind the glass showcase. In a moment, everyone in the diner was going to see him drool.

Darn it, he'd only made it to Granny's today because the Queen was too focused on the angry mob vandalizing her garden to catch him sneaking out of the house! If he wanted sweets, then he had to have them _now_.

Red placed the hot cocoa in front of him. Before she could turn to the next customer, he called out, "Hey, Ms. Riding Hood?"

Red raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" she said, pulling the cape's hood off of her head.

"How much does a slice of cake cost?"

"They're all two dollars, forty-nine cents," said Red with a smile. "What kind?"

Henry inhaled. What would go well with hot chocolate? "Is there chocolate?" he decided.

"Coming right up, Henry," said Red. She reached across the counter and patted him gently on the shoulder. "And you can still call me Ruby."

Henry quietly shook his head as he watched her grin at Happy and Bashful on her way to the showcase. He liked innocent Red Riding Hood a lot better than he liked "the whore" (as he'd once heard the Queen call her) Ruby Lucas, and he intended to call her by her real, better name. Really, he liked almost everyone in Storybrooke more now that they knew who they really were – Jiminy was more self-assured than Archie, Ms. Blanchard and David were so happy together as Snow and James, and even Sydney Glass was a lot less creepy now that he was a tortured genie and not just a slimy reporter. Everyone just had this certain new light about them, and as long as Regina wasn't around, it made Henry feel great.

He took a lengthy sip of his cocoa as he pondered further. _So the Storybrooke outside of the mayor's house is kind of awesome now. But wait, Henry! Didn't the Queen have knights and stuff? There could be evil snacking in this very diner and you don't even know it! Let's not be too trusting juuust –_

"Henry? Henry!"

The sound of someone behind him calling out his name made Henry's mug tip a little too far back. Whipped cream got in his nose. Red was back quickly with cake and several extra napkins, which Henry soon regretted not using immediately instead of turning around first.

Standing behind him was a tall blonde girl with two braids coming down past her shoulders. Henry recognized her immediately. "Ava?"

Ava only responded with a raised eyebrow and a strange, tiny, throaty noise: a sort of "Hm, hm, hm." It took Henry a moment to realize that she was giggling, and in a panic, he grabbed a napkin and wiped away as much whipped cream as he could. "Ava! Hi, how are you, Ava?" he said, grateful that he had a way to cover up how red his face was.

"You know that's not really my name, Henry," said Ava.

"Right. Hi, um . . . um . . . " Henry knew this, and he knew that he knew it because he remembered knowing it before Ava knew it herself. But now . . . suddenly, he could hardly move, let alone recall things. All he could do was open and close his mouth, stuttering as he did.

Ava climbed onto the stool next to him. "I'm actually Gretel," she said. "Nick is Hansel. You remember Nick, right?" She grabbed Henry's shoulder to turn his stool around, making him jump so much his bottom nearly lifted off the chair.

What was going on?

"Nick? You mean Nicholas?"

"Oh, yeah," said Gretel with a shrug. "Father took to calling him Nick instead, and it kind of stuck. But we all prefer Hansel."

"Oh." Henry peered over his shoulder. "Where _is _Hansel?" he asked cautiously.

"He and Father are meeting me here soon. He loved this model train he saw in the toy store window and . . . well, Father is just too good to us. He asked Hansel if he wanted to get a closer look," said Gretel. She looked at the floor and let the corners of her mouth tick upwards. "He's making up for lost time." She lifted her head. Her small eyes, shiny with tears, met Henry's before he freaked out and looked at the floor – they really needed to change the grout. "I just wanted to thank you for helping to find him."

That was a surprise to Henry, but at the same time, he couldn't help but smile. "Really?" he said, peeking up at her slightly. "What did I do?"

"Well . . . " Gretel rested her elbow on the counter and put her chin in her hand. "You believed that Father was out there," she said thoughtfully. "And you believed in how dangerous it would be to leave Storybrooke. Sheriff Swan never would've tried so hard if you hadn't believed like you did."

Henry sat up straight, beaming. Finally, someone was giving him the time of day about his ever-consistent belief – 8:15, to be exact. For the past two weeks, every time he'd left the house, he'd seen people rejoicing or crying or getting angry about the curse being broken, but not once had anyone actually said to him, "Henry, you were right!" Gretel wasn't saying that exactly, but wow, did the sentiment feel just perfect!

"And if you hadn't been at the convenience store when we were, we never would have been arrested," Gretel added.

Maybe there had been some subtext of "Henry, you were right!" when other people talked to him. But it took another kid to have the bravery to say it exactly. And she was brave in every sense of the word. Henry couldn't believe that someone who had single-handedly gotten herself _and _her brother through so much still didn't have wrinkles. Was still so pretty.

"You're a cool kid, Henry," said Gretel. "Thanks for everything." She lay her arm down on the counter and grinned. It was the first time Henry had ever seen her smile so widely.

He had no idea how to respond besides smiling back, but luckily, Gretel had an idea for him. She held out an arm and placed it over her shoulder. Henry hesitated a bit before he caught on and hugged her back. It was a feat to get his arm around her, as she was quite a bit taller than he, but it was still nice.

After a couple of seconds, Gretel stopped hugging him and sat up straight. Behind her, the door to the diner squeaked open. She turned around and, to Henry's unexpected disappointment, immediately got down from her stool. There stood her father, the woodcutter, with his hands on Hansel's shoulders. Hansel stared in awe at the big box in his arms – a model train set? Both of them had that invigorating new light about them, and as Gretel ran towards them, it enveloped her as well.

Henry was reminded of the first time he met her. Or likewise, met Ava. Sure, she'd set him up and then betrayed him, but he'd long forgiven that. The painful part had been when Nick showed up. At first, he thought Nick – clearly much closer in age and height to Ava than Henry was – was Ava's boyfriend. He couldn't explain why, but at that moment, he felt like a balloon that had been filled up and popped immediately afterwards. It felt a little like that now as he watched Gretel leave to be with her family.

Now, he was alone with his cocoa and his cake. He picked up his fork and took a big bite of the pastry. "Yum," he sighed glumly.

"Who was that, Henry?" said a voice. Henry looked up to see Red standing across the counter. She was looking at the door. She was watching the Tillman family.

Henry poked his fork into the mug and scooped up a small pile of whipped cream. "No one," he answered before eating the sugary stuff. It did hardly anything to cheer him up. Suddenly, it hadn't been worth the escape from the Evil Queen's house. "Hansel and Av . . . Gretel. But I don't really know them."

"It looked like you knew _her," _said Red. She reached over and poked him playfully on the arm. "She's very pretty!"

Henry's head snapped up, his face suddenly as red as her cloak. "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" he said. "I don't _like _her. I'm ten!" He sipped his cocoa. "And she's twelve."

Red slowly leaned down to Henry's eye level, resting her head on her arms. "Henry," she said quietly, "even the babies in this town are twenty-eight years old. If you're going to say you can't love someone because of their age, then you might never find your true happiness."

"I'm not in love with her or anything," said Henry with a shrug. "I already have a true love. My mom, remember? She kissed me and it broke a curse."

"But Henry, haven't you felt the glow? I've felt it, and so has everyone else in this diner. The magic brought back love, and it's freaking everywhere now. Not every person you love is going to be your one true love, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make a connection." Red smiled slyly. "That's something I learned in Storybrooke."

Henry shrank further down in his seat. Dangit, Red Riding Hood had some good points. It was like talking to Archie if Archie knew anything about girls. "Well, if I _did _like her, what's something I could do?" he asked cautiously.

Red grinned. "Well, offering to buy a girl a drink never fails. But let's save that for your late teens." Henry watched her eyes shift around the room as she pondered the options. Suddenly, her smile brightened. "Say, you have a lot of that cake left. Did Snow teach you about sharing and caring?"

Henry smiled. "I'm on it." With that, he grabbed the plate and dashed across the room to the booth where the Tillmans were sitting. He instantly regretted his excitement when he shouted Gretel's name and found her father, Hansel, and every other customer in the diner staring at him. He looked back at Red with apprehension, but she motioned for him to go on.

So he turned back to Gretel, who looked absolutely confused. "Henry, what is it?"

Henry was shaking. The entire room was silent, and he was certain that was because everyone was watching him. But when he looked Gretel right in the eyes, he not only saw that strange light, but he felt it, too. It tickled his belly like it was full of feathers and warmed his hands. It had to be magic, because otherwise he never could have gulped and said, "Thanks for saying I was cool."

"Hey, I thought you said I was the coolest," Hansel whispered to his sister. Gretel shushed him.

Henry continued. "I wondered if maybe you wanted to share the rest of my cake," he said, thrusting out the hand holding the plate.

Gretel noticeably cringed. Once again, Henry felt like the deflated balloon. He started to turn around and make his humiliated way back to the counter, but Gretel hastily made up for it. "I haven't been able to eat cake ever since what happened at the Blind Witch's house," she said. "But I guess if it would mean that much to you . . . "

Red started shaking her hands around like an excited little girl, and Henry slowly turned back to Gretel.

"I can try one bite." Gretel flashed a small smile in Henry's direction, then looked past him to Red. "No one will eat me if I taste this, will they?" she asked.

Red knit her brow in thought for a moment, but then she smiled again and shook her head. "It's German Chocolate cake! You'll love it!"

Gretel nodded and reached out for the plate. "I bet I will. You know, in this world, our story was first told in Germany. Right, Father?"

Her father nodded silently and put his arm around Hansel.

"Alright, Henry, I trust you on this," said Gretel. She held out her other hand, and as Henry gave her the fork, her thumb brushed against his index finger. His hands got warmer and his belly tickled even more.

With every eye in the room on her, Gretel poked at the cake with the fork. The piece she dislodged was tiny, hardly more than a crumb, but Henry didn't mind, because every moment as she lifted the crumb up to her mouth was pure terror for her and she was fighting past that terror for him.

She closed her eyes as the cake fell onto her tongue. She chewed, although that was perhaps a bit redundant, and finally, swallowed. The diner was still. But ultimately, when no Blind Witch awoke, Gretel opened her eyes, once again sporting that rare, wide smile. "Yum!" she said. "I'd forgotten how good this was. Hey, Hansel, want a taste?"

Henry still wouldn't say that he loved Gretel. But as the diners cheered for her overcome fear and Hansel recoiled from the harmless dessert, he looked at Red. Watching "the whore" give him an emphatic thumbs-up with tears in her eyes, being sweet as could be, Henry knew now that magic could really change things. Right now, he was only a confused little boy. But he would just have to see where this trail of cake crumbs would lead.

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**A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Reviews are very much appreciated!**


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